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Tips for Safe Business Travel: What to do When You Have a Vehicle Breakdown

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Even if your company has a good roadside assistance plan, it’s important to be aware of what you should do in case the vehicle breaks down. While many people have emergency roadside assistance coverage for their personal vehicle, when it comes to business, they don’t think about what will happen when driving a commercial vehicle.

It may not always be possible to call your company for immediate assistance. What happens if you’re 100 miles away from the office? Before heading out the door, employees should find out what to do in case of an emergency. Being prepared before trouble strikes is imperative.

If you find yourself broken down on the side of the road, you’ll want to have a plan in place, including a phone number to call for emergency assistance. In the meantime, be sure and follow these tips that will keep you safe while you wait. Knowing what to do if you breakdown can help ensure that the experience is taken care of as quickly and as smoothly as possible.

  • Be aware of your location. Look for street signs, landmarks or mile markers so that you can describe your exact location when calling for assistance.
  • Get out of traffic if possible. The road’s shoulder, a median or an exit ramp are safer than sitting in the middle of the highway. If the vehicle is completely disabled and can’t be moved, do not stay inside. Instead, leave the hood up and turn your emergency lights on. Move out of the way of traffic as quickly and as safely as possible.
  • Alerting other drivers through use of flares and hazard lights in addition to raising the hood will indicate to other drivers that you need help.
  • If you are able to get to the side of the road, it is better to remain in your vehicle until help arrives. If you feel you may be in a dangerous situation at any point, call your local emergency number, such as 911, immediately.
  • When a breakdown occurs, be sure to take precautions to prevent you from personal harm. If you’re in a bad neighborhood, stay in the car and lock the doors. If the vehicle breaks down in the middle of the road and you cannot get it to the side, do not stay in the vehicle.
  • Call for roadside assistance utilizing your company’s provider. If your company does not have a plan in place, call for emergency assistance and speak with your boss or appropriate contact within your company when you return about getting a commercial roadside assistance plan in place as quickly as possible. Being proactive can potentially save the company thousands of dollars over time.

Commercial Roadside Assistance: Who needs it?

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When you think of auto clubs or roadside assistance plans you probably think of coverage for your family during summer road trips or for a commute to school or to work; however, these same programs that can be such a lifesaver are also available for vehicles that don’t fall into the private passenger category.

Any business that uses a vehicle for any work activity should be covered through a roadside assistance plan, including business-owned vehicles such as commercial, fleet or construction vehicles.

Just as you don’t want your family member’s safety jeopardized, you shouldn’t put your company or its employees’ lives at risk while using a company vehicle.

If you hadn’t realized roadside assistance is an option for your business-owned vehicles, it is! You should consider enrolling in a commercial roadside assistance program if:

  • Your business uses vehicles to pick up or deliver goods or services. Vehicles might include delivery trucks or vans, maintenance vehicles, or any vehicle used to carry business equipment.
  • Your business employees drivers to operate a fleet of vehicles that provide transportation services which can include, transportation from a nursing home to a hospital or rehab facility, taxicabs, or buses used for transporting students or senior citizens, etc.
  • Your business requires the use of construction vehicles.
  • Your business offers rental vehicles.

Any business that uses a vehicle for business activities can benefit from a commercial roadside assistance plan.

Why it can be even more important for commercial vehicles to be covered

As both construction vehicles and vehicles that have been modified for deliveries or other services, they are more likely to have breakdowns compared to the average private passenger car. While the costs of roadside assistance can be higher, it will also save you and your company more money over the long haul.

If a company vehicle breaks down, in addition to the annoying frustration and inconvenience to yourself and possibly your customer, the loss of business will ultimately cost the company more if you’re not able to get the vehicle back on the road as quickly as possible.

The cost of calling a tow truck or a mechanic out to a stranded driver is typically far more than the cost of a roadside assistance program, and by having this coverage in place you’ll be providing peace of mind to anyone who drives a vehicle for your company.

The Importance of a Company Roadside Assistance Plan

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Having a roadside assistance plan probably seems like a no-brainer when it comes to your family car. The last thing you want is to be stranded during a road trip or while commuting to work. But did you think about the importance of having a roadside assistance plan for your company?

A company roadside assistance plan can actually save you and your company money by getting your employee back on the road as quickly as possible if there is a mechanical breakdown or other emergency while driving a company vehicle.

Any business that uses a vehicle for any work activity should be covered through a roadside assistance plan. With the wide variety of vehicle emergencies that can happen, it isn’t worth the risk of saving the small amount coverage cost when compared to the exorbitant amounts of towing and other repair expenses.

Potential lost business

If your driver is out on the road on the way to make an important delivery, what happens if the vehicle breaks down along the way? Having a roadside assistance plan will get him back on the road quickly and back in business.

If you or your employee were to drive a company vehicle to meet an important new client, what happens if that vehicle experiences a flat tire on the way? You don’t want your employee fixing a flat tire out on the highway. Attempting car repairs could jeopardize your company by putting the employee’s safety at risk.

In addition to the benefits of free towing service, many minor repairs can be made on the spot by a trained professional.

A roadside assistance plan will save you money over time

Having commercial roadside assistance coverage is far less expensive than having to pay a locksmith when the keys are locked inside the vehicle or getting it towed to a location where it can be repaired.  You won’t have to worry about a missed delivery, or losing a client to the competition because a company vehicle broke down. Remember, a customer typically won’t care what the reason was if you aren’t able to fulfill a promise, whether it was product delivery or a missed appointment.

Just as you don’t want to risk being stranded out on the road without assistance, remember the importance of not leaving your employees or customers stranded due to any vehicle issues.

The Benefits of Having Commercial Roadside Assistance

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While many people are well aware of the benefits of a personal roadside assistance program, and wouldn’t think of going on the road without such coverage, when it comes to business owners, many don’t think about covering their company vehicles and employees in the same way.

Why commercial roadside assistance is crucial to your business

Having a commercial roadside assistance plan can be as beneficial, or even more so than your personal roadside assistance plan. Any business that uses a vehicle for any work activity should be covered through a roadside assistance plan, including business-owned vehicles such as commercial, rental, fleet or construction vehicles.

Commercial roadside assistance plans typically cover the vehicles rather than the driver or the specific individual, allowing your company to assign any driver to any vehicle and still receive the coverage and service that you need at any time.

From one car to 1000, both small and large company vehicles can be covered. Roadside service plans are provided to hospitals, banks, insurance companies, high schools, college universities, government agencies, non-profit organizations, construction companies, delivery service companies, rehabilitation centers, nursing homes and many others.

The specific benefits of commercial roadside assistance

Just some of the benefits of commercial roadside assistance can include minor mechanical repair, battery service, tire changes and emergency fuel and/or water delivery – all services that can get your or your employee back on the road safely and quickly.

Who hasn’t locked their keys in the car at one time or another? With commercial roadside assistance coverage, if you or one of your employees inadvertently lock the keys inside a company vehicle, lockout service is provided using conventional tools to open the vehicle and retrieve the keys.

Employees who have a delivery to make or a scheduled appointment with a client may have difficulty finding a location. Directions and map routing are another valuable tool that can be provided to help a lost employee or to use as a beneficial travel tool to avoid the frustration of locating hard to find destinations.

Commercial roadside assistance is always a valuable resource for any company with a wealth of benefits and services that can often save the company more money than if they were to pay for services separately.

How Motorcycle Roadside Assistance Can Benefit You

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Imagine you’re out riding with guys on a beautiful sunny day and all of a sudden, you have a flat tire. What are you going to do? You don’t want to ruin everyone’s day by having them run back and forth trying to figure out how to help and if you have motorcycle roadside assistance, you won’t have to.

If you’ve ever been stranding on the side of the road when riding your bike, you already know how beneficial this type of service can be. If you ride often, eventually something will happen and when it does you can be completely prepared.

Your battery can go dead, you can misplace your keys, you could have engine trouble or you might even run out of gas. When something happens that is covered by your motorcycle roadside assistance plan, help is just a phone call away.

The Serious Biker

If you’re a serious biker and ride every chance you get, even to and from work, then this type of service can greatly benefit you. The more you ride, the more chances there are of something going wrong and you need the peace of mind this service can give.

What would you do if you were on your way to work one morning and you have a flat tire about half way there? If you have roadside assistance, you’ll get a tow to the nearest garage to get it fixed and be on your way. If not, it may take most of the day getting your bike to a garage and taking care of this problem, which in turn will cause you to miss a large portion or a full day’s work.

The Casual Biker

If you’re a casual biker who only goes out once in awhile, you may think that you don’t need this type of service. However, you might need it more than someone who rides often because you’ll be less familiar with the bike and your surroundings. You might not notice that little tick in the engine that is an indication it’s about to give out on you. Your battery is more likely to give out, too because it sits a lot.

Even if you are mechanically inclined and run into problems that you can fix yourself, the side of the road is no place to be working on your bike. It’s just too dangerous but if you have roadside assistance, you can have the bike towed to safe location where you can do the work or have it done. Motorcycle roadside assistance can benefit you in many ways and it’s a great service to have.

Choosing the Best Motorcycle Roadside Assistance Plan

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Motorcycle roadside assistance plans are a lot different today than they used to be. They cover a lot more and offer you more benefits than ever before. Most companies even offer you the opportunity to choose between two different types of policies. One is a personal policy that covers you instead of the bike. If you drive different ones, this would be ideal because you are protected no matter which motorcycle you’re riding.

It even covers you if you borrow someone else’s bike. What would you do if you took a friends bike out and had a flat. You don’t want to call them up and ask them to come get you. If you have the personal roadside assistance plan, you don’t have to. One phone call and a towing service will be on their way to take you to the closest garage so you can take care of the situation.

The other one covers the motorcycle. If you choose the second option, it covers your bike even when someone else is driving it. Therefore, if you let a friend or family member ride it and something happens, that person would be entitled to all the services offered in the plan that you chose.

Choosing a Motorcycle Roadside Assistance Plan

Before you choose a motorcycle roadside assistance plan, find out what the services offered in each plan covers. It’s important to get enough coverage to take care of your needs. For this reason, the full package is recommended. That way, you have access to all of the services and you’re fully prepared for most anything that could leave you stranded on the side of the road.

Your emergency services include towing, flat tire service, lost key service, fuel delivery and jumpstart service. Other options include trip and routing service, concierge service and personal service. You can get discounts on hotels, restaurants and more that can help save you money when traveling.

Tips on Choosing a Plan

Consider how much you ride, how far you go and whether or not you’re the only one who rides the bike when picking out which plan is best for you. If you ride every chance you get or do a lot of traveling, the full package would be the most beneficial since it offers so many extras like discounts and routing services. If you only ride your bike occasionally and don’t venture too far away from home, a plan that covers the basic services like towing, flat tire and jumpstart might work best.

Once you decide what type of services you need, you can start looking at the different companies to determine which one has the services you want at the best price. The Internet is a great tool that will help you compare different companies fast and easy. You can see what services they offer and compare prices with a simple click of the mouse.

The Right Towing Company Will Make a Difference

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When you find yourself broke down on the side of the road and there is no way to fix your vehicle, it’s a scary feeling. No one wants to be in this situation but it does happen to most everyone at some point. When it happens to you or a loved one, the right towing company will make a difference and this is one reason so many drivers have roadside assistance.

When you have this service with a plan that covers towing, you don’t have to worry about finding someone to move your vehicle. This is something that they will do for you. The roadside assistance company that you selected will already have a list of dependable towing companies available for the area where you’re located. Therefore, you don’t have to worry about trying to figure out whom to call.

They will also make the calls for you to find out which company is closest and which one can get there the fastest. Once you make the initial call to your representative, you can sit back, relax and wait for the tow truck to arrive.

If you’re calling someone on your own and you’re not in an area that you’re familiar with, the company you choose may not be dependable. They may take hours before showing up leaving you and your family stranded on the side of the road needlessly.

Another problem with just picking a name out of the phone book is that you may get someone who doesn’t care about your vehicle the way they should. If this happens, they could actually do more damage to it during towing, which will end up costing you more in the end.

There have been situations where the chains were hooked in the wrong place and it caused damage to the front of the towed vehicle. Drivers have even been known to not hook the vehicle securely, which resulted in the automobile coming loose and rolling into traffic where it was hit by other drivers.

The right towing companies will make a difference by taking precautions to not make a bad situation worse. They will arrive as fast as possible to get you off the road. They will know how to hook your vehicle up properly to avoid causing more damage and they will always act in a courteous and professional manner.

Some vehicles require a flat bed when towing instead of the regular tow truck. A good towing company will know what you need as soon as soon they learn what type of vehicle you drive. As a result, they won’t send out a regular wrecker to tow in an automobile that needs a flat bed. In other words, they are prepared, knowledgeable and available when you need them.

By choosing a roadside assistance plan with towing service, you can rest assured that the right towing companies will be called and you’ll get fast, professional help when you need it most.

Why You Should Join an Auto Club

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If you spend more than an hour on the road, chances are you’ll see at least one vehicle sitting on the side of the road broke down. If that person is a member of an auto club, they will have help on the way soon but if they’re not, they may be stranded for awhile. If they don’t have the cash on hand to pay for having the vehicle towed or a friend that can help move the automobile, they may be forced to leave it sitting until they can figure out what to do.

There are a couple of problems with leaving your vehicle unattended. First, you run the risk of it being vandalized, which is going to cost you even more money to get it up and running again. Even if you’re in an area where you don’t have to worry about vandals, you still can’t leave your vehicle on the side of the road or in a parking lot for very long.

If you are on private property, the owner of that property or business has a right to have your vehicle towed off their property. If it’s actually on the side of the road, most areas will give you three to five days to take care of the problem after which time the state will have it towed. The local police will place different color stickers on the vehicle to remind the owner that it will be towed at the end of the allotted time.

How many times have you seen stickers on vehicles left sitting on the side of the road? It would probably be safe to say that the owner of these vehicles do not belong to an auto club or have any type of roadside assistance because if they did, this problem would have already been taken care of. Can you imagine the stress the owners must be going through trying to figure out what to do? They need to get their automobile moved before it’s too late and outrageous charges for towing and storage are added to their troubles.

Aren’t you glad it’s not you in this predicament? The thing is, if you’re not a member of an auto club or if you don’t have any type of roadside assistance, you may find yourself in the exact same situation one day. Would you be able to get your vehicle home if it left you stranded?

When you have roadside assistance, depending on which plan you choose, the service will send someone out to change your tire if you have a flat, bring you fuel if you run out before you make it to the gas station and jump off your vehicle if your battery goes dead. They also provide towing services. The roadside assistance is just one of the reasons why you should join an auto club. They have many other benefits, too.

Why Choose Tow Service with Roadside Assistance

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When choosing a roadside assistance plan, you’ll need to decide what services you want to have. At first, you may not consider the tow service especially if you have a new car or keep the maintenance up on your vehicle. However, there are many great reasons for choosing this service.

Did you know that many brand new vehicles that have never been driven before have broken down within a month or two after being purchase, leaving the owner stranded? When you invest in a new car, truck, van, etc., you automatically expect to drive it for years before having any major issues but that’s not always the case.

Consider how many vehicles go through the assembly line each day and the fact that the people building them are only human. One small, simple mistake can make the world of difference and be the deciding factor in whether or not the vehicle has problems early on in ownership. The engine could blow or the transmission could be flawed.

It can and does happen, which is one of the reasons new vehicles come with extended warranties that will protect the owner in the event a manufacturer’s flaw occurs. However, this isn’t going to help you if you happen to be one of the unlucky consumers whose new vehicle leaves them stranded on the side of the road. This warranty is not going to tow your vehicle to a garage and get you and your family to a safe area but roadside assistance with towing service will.

That scenario may seem a little extreme and it is true that the majority of new vehicles are fine but the point is that anything can happen, anytime to any vehicle so you need to be prepared. You may never need this service but in the event that you do, you’ll be glad that you made the decision to include it in your roadside assistance plan.

You know that your family will be protected and that with just one phone call, you can have someone on the way to help. This is the reason for getting roadside coverage to begin with, so why not make sure you are fully covered by getting the main types of coverage even if you don’t foresee any reason why you would need it. This type of coverage helps you prepare for the unforeseen events that often occur.

If you’re thinking you can just call a towing service to come out if you ever find yourself in this predicament, you can. However, it will cost you about as much or more for the one tow than the tow service with a roadside assistance plan would cost and you don’t get any other benefits.

In addition, you run the risk of not finding a reliable or trustworthy company that will do their best to take care of your vehicle during towing or someone that will get to you as fast as possible. If you include tow service in your roadside assistance plan, you never have to worry about it.

Tips for Choosing the Best Car Clubs with Roadside Assistance

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There are many car clubs available with roadside assistance and other benefits. In fact, there are so many of them around that it can be difficult to choose the one that would suit your needs the best. Since different drivers need different types of services, clubs offer a variety of services and benefits to choose from.

Instead of just picking one and hoping you get the best, it’s a good idea to pick out a few different clubs and compare them. This way, you can determine which one has the services you need the most for the best price.

Here are a few tips for choosing the best roadside assistance car clubs:

  • The best way to compare services and prices is to use the Internet. It makes it easy to see what the clubs have to offer. This way, you can do a side-by-side comparison to determine which one would serve your needs the best.
  • If friends or family have told you about a good club, then take time to check it out, too. It may end up being the one you’re searching for even if they don’t have a website.
  • Find out what type of roadside assistance they offer along with other benefits.
  • Ask about the different types of discounts they have to offer.
  • Check references and read user reviews to see what other members have to say about the club.
  • Determine what your needs are and look for a club that offers the services that you would use the most.

If you do a lot of traveling, then a club that offers long-distance towing services, traveling services, maps and routing information would be the most beneficial. If you drive an RV when on vacation, then a club offering discounts on RV Resorts, restaurants and so forth would be a good choice. Do you visit theme parks regularly or go to movie theaters, some car clubs offer discounts to these.

After narrowing down your options make a few phone calls and talk to the representatives to see how they respond to your questions and concerns. This will give you a good idea of whether or not they are knowledgeable and it will give you an idea of what type of environment the club offers.

A friendly, knowledgeable representative usually means a good environment where you’ll feel comfortable. However, you may want to avoid any clubs where the representative is rude, inattentive or seem confused about the services they have to offer.

Once you learn all you can about the different car clubs, you can make a good, informed decision and choose the one that provides you with the type of service you need the most.